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Home , Aleko (Rachmaninoff), Alexander Glazunov, Andrei Gavrilov, Emil Gilels, Philadelphia Orchestra, Piano concerto

23 Season 2017-2018

Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 Friday, April 13, at 2:00 The Saturday, April 14, at 8:00 Sunday, April 15, at 2:00 Yannick Nézet-Séguin Conductor

Rachmaninoff Piano No. 2 in , Op. 18 (April 12 and 13 only) I. Moderato II. Adagio sostenuto III. Allegro scherzando No. 3 in , Op. 30 (April 14 and 15 only) I. Allegro ma non tanto II. : Adagio— III. Finale: Alla breve Intermission Bartók I. Introduzione: Andante non troppo—Allegro vivace II. Giuoco delle coppie: Allegretto scherzando III. Elegia: Andante non troppo IV. Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto V. Finale: Pesante—Presto

The April 12 and 13 program runs approximately 1 hour, 40 minutes. The April 14 and 15 program runs approximately 1 hour, 50 minutes.

Rachmaninoff’s Piano Nos. 2 and 3 are being recorded live for future release by . We ask for your cooperation in making this project a success. Please make every effort to minimize noise during the concert. The April 12 concert is sponsored by the Louis N. Cassett Foundation. The April 12 concert is also sponsored by Cynthia and Scott Schumacker. The April 14 concert is sponsored by Ralph Muller.

Philadelphia Orchestra concerts are broadcast on WRTI 90.1 FM on Sunday afternoons at 1 PM, and are repeated on Monday evenings at 7 PM on WRTI HD 2. Visit www.wrti.org to listen live or for more details. 24 The Jessica Griffin

The Philadelphia Orchestra Philadelphia is home and impact through Research. is one of the preeminent the Orchestra continues The Orchestra’s award- in the world, to discover new and winning Collaborative renowned for its distinctive inventive ways to nurture Learning programs engage sound, desired for its its relationship with its over 50,000 students, keen ability to capture the loyal patrons at its home families, and community hearts and imaginations of in the Kimmel Center, members through programs audiences, and admired for and also with those who such as PlayINs, side-by- a legacy of imagination and enjoy the Orchestra’s area sides, PopUP concerts, innovation on and off the performances at the Mann free Neighborhood concert stage. The Orchestra Center, Penn’s Landing, Concerts, School Concerts, is inspiring the future and and other cultural, civic, and residency work in transforming its rich tradition and learning venues. The Philadelphia and abroad. of achievement, sustaining Orchestra maintains a strong Through concerts, tours, the highest level of artistic commitment to collaborations residencies, presentations, quality, but also challenging— with cultural and community and recordings, The and exceeding—that level, organizations on a regional Philadelphia Orchestra is and national level, all of which by creating powerful musical a global ambassador for create greater access and experiences for audiences at Philadelphia and for the engagement with classical home and around the world. US. Having been the first as an art form. American orchestra to Music Director Yannick The Philadelphia Orchestra perform in , in 1973 Nézet-Séguin’s connection serves as a catalyst for at the request of President to the Orchestra’s musicians cultural activity across Nixon, the ensemble today has been praised by Philadelphia’s many boasts new five-year both concertgoers and communities, building an partnerships with ’s critics since his inaugural offstage presence as strong National Centre for the season in 2012. Under his as its onstage one. With Performing Arts and the leadership the Orchestra Nézet-Séguin, a dedicated Shanghai Media Group. In returned to recording, body of musicians, and one 2018 the Orchestra travels with three celebrated of the nation’s richest arts to and Israel. The CDs on the prestigious ecosystems, the Orchestra Orchestra annually performs Deutsche Grammophon has launched its HEAR at while also label, continuing its history initiative, a portfolio of enjoying summer residencies of recording success. The integrated initiatives that in Saratoga Springs, NY, and Orchestra also reaches promotes Health, champions Vail, CO. For more information thousands of listeners on the music Education, eliminates on The Philadelphia radio with weekly broadcasts barriers to Accessing the Orchestra, please visit on WRTI-FM and SiriusXM. orchestra, and maximizes www.philorch.org. 4 Music Director

Chris Lee Music Director Yannick Nézet-Séguin is now confirmed to lead The Philadelphia Orchestra through the 2025-26 season, an extraordinary and significant long-term commitment. Additionally, he becomes the third music director of the Metropolitan beginning with the 2018-19 season; he is currently music director designate. Yannick, who holds the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Chair, is an inspired leader of The Philadelphia Orchestra. His intensely collaborative style, deeply rooted musical curiosity, and boundless enthusiasm, paired with a fresh approach to orchestral programming, have been heralded by critics and audiences alike. has called him “phenomenal,” adding that under his baton, “the ensemble, famous for its glowing strings and homogenous richness, has never sounded better.”

Yannick has established himself as a musical leader of the highest caliber and one of the most thrilling talents of his generation. He is in his 10th and final season as music director of the Rotterdam Philharmonic, and he has been artistic director and principal conductor of Montreal’s Orchestre Métropolitain since 2000. In summer 2017 he became an honorary member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe. He was also principal guest conductor of the London Philharmonic from 2008 to 2014. He has made wildly successful appearances with the world’s most revered ensembles and has conducted critically acclaimed performances at many of the leading opera houses.

Yannick and Deutsche Grammophon (DG) enjoy a long-term collaboration. Under his leadership The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to recording with three CDs on that label. He continues fruitful recording relationships with the Rotterdam Philharmonic on DG, EMI Classics, and BIS Records; the London Philharmonic for the LPO label; and the Orchestre Métropolitain for ATMA Classique. In Yannick’s inaugural season The Philadelphia Orchestra returned to the radio airwaves, with weekly Sunday afternoon broadcasts on WRTI- FM.

A native of Montreal, Yannick studied piano, , composition, and at Montreal’s Conservatory of Music and continued his studies with renowned conductor ; he also studied choral conducting with Joseph Flummerfelt at Westminster College. Among Yannick’s honors are a appointment as Companion of the Order of Canada; ’s 2016 Artist of the Year; Canada’s National Arts Centre Award; the Prix Denise-Pelletier; and honorary doctorates from the University of Quebec in Montreal, the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, and Westminster Choir College of Rider University in Princeton, NJ.

To read Yannick’s full bio, please visit philorch.org/conductor. 25 Soloist

Dario Acosta/Deutsche Grammophon Dario Acosta/Deutsche Russian Daniil Trifonov, Gramophone’s 2016 Artist of the Year, has made a spectacular ascent in the world of as a solo artist, a champion of the concerto repertoire, a collaborator in chamber music and song, and a composer. He first appeared with The Philadelphia Orchestra at Saratoga in 2013 and made his subscription debut in 2015, just weeks after Deutsche Grammophon (DG) released the Grammy-nominated recording Rachmaninoff Variations with him, Yannick Nézet-Séguin, and The Philadelphia Orchestra. Focusing on Chopin in the 2017-18 season, Mr. Trifonov releases Chopin: Evocation, his fourth album as an exclusive DG artist, which includes works by Chopin and 20th-century composers who were greatly influenced by the Polish master. He gives more than 20 recitals on the same theme across the US, Europe, and Asia, including one at Carnegie Hall as part of a seven-concert, season-long Perspectives series that he curates. He also gives performances of his own Piano Concerto with longtime collaborator leading the Mariinsky Orchestra and Giancarlo Guerrero and the Detroit ; curates a series of recitals and orchestral appearances at the Vienna Konzerthaus; and tours Asia and Europe. In addition to these current concerts, he performs Rachmaninoff with Mr. Gergiev and the Munich Philharmonic, Peter Oundjian and the Toronto Symphony, and in season-closing performances with the Symphony, Mr. Trifonov’s recordings with DG also include Transcendental, a double album of Liszt’s complete concert etudes, and Trifonov: The Carnegie Recital, a recording of his Carnegie Hall recital debut, which won both an ECHO Klassik Award and a Grammy nomination. His discography also features a Chopin album for Decca and a recording of Tchaikovsky’s First Piano Concerto with Mr. Gergiev and the Mariinsky Orchestra on the ensemble’s own label. Born in Nizhny Novgorod in 1991, Mr. Trifonov attended ’s Gnessin School of Music before pursuing piano studies with at the Cleveland Institute of Music. He has also studied composition and continues to write for piano, chamber ensemble, and orchestra. 26 Framing the Program

The 23-year-old was utterly Parallel Events shattered in 1897 by the dismal reception of his First 1900 Music Symphony. He withdrew the work, stopped composing, Rachmaninoff Elgar and became seriously depressed. Four years later the Piano Concerto Dream of enormous success that his Second Piano Concerto No. 2 Gerontius enjoyed from critics and audiences alike helped him to Literature regain his confidence. His Third Piano Concerto, which Chekov he premiered in , followed eight years later. Uncle Vanya Rachmaninoff performed both pieces many times with The Art Philadelphia Orchestra and recorded them here as well. At Sargent The Sitwell these concerts, the young Russian pianist Daniil Trifonov Family joins Yannick and the Philadelphians in performances that History are being recorded live for Deutsche Grammophon, thus Boxer Rebellion continuing the celebrated legacy of Rachmaninoff’s music in China and the Orchestra. In 1940 Béla Bartók left his native Hungary and war- 1909 Music Rachmaninoff Strauss torn Europe to live for the remaining five years of his life Piano Concerto Elektra in America. After an extended period of writer’s block, No. 3 Literature he received a welcome commission that resulted in the Wells dazzling Concerto for Orchestra, his most frequently Tono-Bungay performed composition. -movement work Art showcases the collective virtuosity of a full symphony Matisse orchestra, a perfect vehicle for The Philadelphians. The Dance History Peary reaches the North Pole

1943 Music Bartók Copland Concerto for A Orchestra Literature Sinclair Dragon’s Teeth Art Chagall The Juggler History Penicillin first used The Philadelphia Orchestra is the only American orchestra with successfully weekly broadcasts on Sirius XM’s Symphony Hall, Channel 76, made possible through support from the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation on behalf of David and Sandy Marshall. Broadcasts are heard on Mondays at 7 PM, Thursdays at 12 AM, and Saturdays at 4 PM. 27 The Music

Sergei Rachmaninoff pursued multiple professional careers and juggled different personal identities, often out of joint with the realities of his time and place. He was a Russian who fled his country after the 1917 Revolution and who lived in America and Europe for the rest of his life. He was a great composer who, in order to support himself and his family, spent most of his time performing, both as a conductor and as one of the towering of the 20th century. And he was a Romantic composer writing in the age of burgeoning Sergei Rachmaninoff Modernism, his music embraced by audiences but Born in Semyonovo, seemingly from a bygone world alien to the stylistic , , 1873 innovations of Debussy, Schoenberg, Ives, Stravinsky, and Died in Beverly Hills, California, March 28, 1943 other contemporaries. Three Professions Rachmaninoff worried at times that his triple professional profile might cancel one another out: “I have chased three hares,” he remarked. “Can I be certain that I have captured one?” (This is based on an old Russian proverb that warned against the problem of chasing two hares, hence spreading oneself too thin.) He was an unusually accomplished performer in two domains at a time when there was an ever increasing separation between performer and composer. Rachmaninoff, in the great tradition of Mozart and Beethoven through Strauss and Mahler, was the principal performing advocate of his own music. And yet even when he was out of sync with time and place, Rachmaninoff pressed on with a grueling performance schedule (sometimes 70 or more concerts in a year) and composed some of the most popular and enduring works of the first half of the 20th century. That during the latter half of his career he did most of this with The Philadelphia Orchestra makes the connections here all the more personal and poignant. The Last Romantic? Rachmaninoff acknowledged his temporal and geographical homelessness. In an interview from the late he said: I feel like a ghost in a world grown alien. I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the new. I have made intense effort to feel the musical manner of today, but it will not come to me. … I cannot cast out my musical gods in a moment and 28

bend the knee to new ones. Even with the disaster of living through what has befallen the Russia where I spent my happiest years, yet I always feel that my own music and my reactions to all music, remained spiritually the same, unendingly obedient in trying to create beauty. It was exactly the personal, expressive, and spiritual that so often gives his music its instantly recognizable sound, drawn from Russian folksong, Orthodox liturgical chant, and a quest for beauty. Two years before his death he declared: “A composer’s music should express the country of his birth, his love affairs, his religion, the books which have influenced him, the pictures he loves. It should be the product of the sum total of a composer’s experience.” Rachmaninoff’s unusual position as a late Romantic— perhaps even the last Romantic—was shrewdly assessed by Richard Taruskin in his monumental Oxford History of Western Music:

There were many, during the 1920s and 1930s, who regarded him as the greatest living composer, precisely because he was the only one who seemed capable of successfully maintaining the familiar and prestigious style of the nineteenth-century “classics” into the twentieth century. The fact that he was in fact capable of doing so, moreover, and that his style was as distinctive as any contemporary’s, could be used to refute the modernist argument that traditional styles had been exhausted. Taruskin puts his finger on the difference between a conservative composer like Rachmaninoff, who is genuinely popular with audiences, and challenging Modernist composers whose music is widely resisted, but whose stylistic innovations earn them prominent places in history books. Rachmaninoff demonstrated that it was still possible to develop an individual, instantly recognizable, and captivating compositional voice. , another composer with deep ties to The Philadelphia Orchestra, did something similar, but such figures were rare in the 20th century. Rachmaninoff in Russia Rachmaninoff was born to a well-to-do family that assiduously cultivated his prodigious musical gifts. His mother was his first piano teacher and at age nine he began studies at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, but floundered there. The family finances were declining, as was his parents’ marriage, 29 and he transferred to the , where he thrived. He met leading Russian musicians, studied with some of them, and won the whole-hearted support of his hero, Tchaikovsky. Upon graduation in the of 1892 Rachmaninoff was awarded the Great Gold Medal, a rarely bestowed honor. His career as both pianist and composer was clearly on the rise with impressive works such as the Piano Concerto No. 1, the one-act opera (about which Tchaikovsky enthused), and pieces in a wide variety of other genres. One piano work written at age 18 received almost too much attention: the C-sharp minor Prelude, the extraordinary popularity of which meant he found himself having to perform it for the rest of his life. He seemed on track for a brilliant and charmed career, the true successor to Tchaikovsky. Then things went terribly wrong with the premiere of his Symphony No. 1 in D minor, which proved to be one of the legendary fiascos in music history and a bitter shock to Rachmaninoff just days before his 24th birthday. , an eminent composer and teacher but, according to various reports, a mediocre conductor, led the ill- fated performance in March 1897. The event plunged Rachmaninoff into deep despair: “When the indescribable torture of this performance had at last come to an end, I was a different man.” For some three years Rachmaninoff stopped composing, although he continued to perform as a pianist and began to establish a prominent new career as a conductor. He eventually found therapeutic relief and reemerged in 1901 with the Second Piano Concerto, an instant success. The following year, after surmounting religious obstacles, he married his cousin Natalia Satina, with whom he had two daughters. His first important tour abroad was to London, where he conducted the orchestral fantasy and played various small piano pieces. (He declined to perform the First Piano Concerto, which would have been the natural vehicle but he considered it a student work until he revised it later.) His conducting career flourished as principal conductor at the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow and he earned some further income teaching. But political ferment in Russia after the Bloody Sunday massacre in January 1905 prompted him to spend more time abroad and concentrate on composition, writing in particular. Beginning in late 1906 he and his family spent most of the year in 30

Dresden, where he finished his Second Symphony, another compositional triumph. This was the piece he chose to conduct for his Philadelphia Orchestra debut in 1909 and it remains a signature work for the Philadelphians to this day. During this first American tour he premiered the Third Piano Concerto in New York and by the end of his three- month stay turned down the offer to become music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. (He would decline again in 1918.) These years turned out to be Rachmaninoff’s most prolific as a composer. He wrote the majority of his music during summers at a pastoral estate called Ivanovka, some 300 miles south of Moscow. But this idyllic world came to an abrupt end with the in 1917. He and his family left in late December, never to return. The Bolsheviks burned most of Ivanovka to the ground (it has since been reconstructed as a museum). Rachmaninoff sought to recapture his happiest Russian memories in faraway places. Life after Russia Challenged with finding ways to support his family, Rachmaninoff decided to concentrate on his keyboard career and began to make recordings as well, in 1920 signing a lucrative contract with the Victor Talking Machine Company (later RCA). His repertory, in comparison with other star pianists, was initially quite limited, and his technique needed honing in order to compete. These realities left him with far less time to compose and his productivity declined considerably. He wrote some small piano pieces and produced many dazzling arrangements that served him well as encores on his extended American and European tours and that fit easily on 78 rpm recordings, but in his last quarter century there were only six more pieces to which he assigned opus numbers. The Variations on a Theme of Corelli, Op. 42 (1931), was his final solo piano work. The five others are for, or with, orchestra, and all were premiered by The Philadelphia Orchestra. Three Russian Songs, Op. 41, scored for chorus and orchestra, and the Fourth Piano Concerto, Op. 40, premiered on the same concert in March 1927 with conducting. The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini, Op. 43, followed in 1934, premiered with Stokowski in Baltimore. His final two works were for orchestra alone: the Symphony No. 3, Op. 44, premiered in 1936 with Stokowski, and the magisterial Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, in 1941 with . In 1939, to mark the 30th anniversary of his first tour to America and his debut with the Orchestra, the Philadelphians and Ormandy presented a “Rachmaninoff 31

Cycle” here and in New York. Rachmaninoff played his first three concertos and the Paganini Rhapsody (with Ormandy on the podium), and conducted his Third Symphony (which he recorded at the time), and the earlier (1913). In addition, Ormandy led the Second Symphony and The Isle of the Dead. After the first concert the New York Times reported that when Rachmaninoff came on stage the audience stood in his honor: “Their admiration for him and their enjoyment of his music were more evident there than words can make them here. The occasion was a memorable tribute to a great artist.” The next year Rachmaninoff made his final trip to Europe and then spent his last years in America, touring to the very end. Although his music was briefly banned in the during the early 1930s, after he wrote a damning letter to the New York Times attacking the regime, he was prized in his homeland as well. A communication on the occasion of his 70th birthday from the Union of Soviet Composers, signed by Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Kabalevsky, Glière, and others, offered “cordial greetings to you, renowned master of Russian musical art, glorious continuer of the great traditions of Glinka and Tchaikovsky, creator of works that are dear and close to the hearts of the Russian people and all progressive humanity.” Unfortunately, Rachmaninoff did not get the message. He died at his home in Beverly Hills just days before his birthday, the belated end of an era.

Piano Concerto No. 2

The Second Concerto came at a crucial juncture in Rachmaninoff’s career, following a nearly three-year period of compositional paralysis in the wake of the legendary failure of his First Symphony in 1897. Although he stopped composing entirely, he continued to perform as a pianist, to teach, and began to establish a new career as a conductor. In the hopes of getting him back on track as a composer, friends and family put him in touch with Dr. Nikolai Dahl, who was experimenting with hypnosis treatments pioneered in Paris around this time by Freud’s teacher Jean-Martin Charcot. Dahl was a gifted amateur musician who took great interest in this case. According to various accounts (perhaps exaggerated), the two met almost daily, with the composer half asleep in the doctor’s armchair hearing the mantra: “You will begin to write your concerto. … You 32

Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano will work with great facility. … The concerto will be of Concerto was composed from excellent quality.” 1900 to 1901. The treatment worked—or at least complemented other was factors that got the composer back on his creative track. pianist in the first Philadelphia A close friendship with the phenomenal Russian Orchestra performance of Fyodor Chaliapin was encouraging, especially when the the Second Concerto, on two were approached after a performance by writer Anton November 28, 1916, in Cleveland; Leopold Stokowski Chekhov, who remarked: “Mr. Rachmaninoff, nobody conducted. Rachmaninoff knows you yet but you will be a great man one day.” performed the piece here By the summer he was composing the Second Piano in 1921 and again on other Concerto, his first substantial work since the Symphony occasions during the late fiasco; he dedicated the work to Dahl. The second and 1930s and early ’40s. The third of its three movements were completed by the most recent subscription fall and Rachmaninoff premiered them in Moscow that performance was in April 2017 December with his cousin conducting. He with pianist Nikolai Lugansky finished the first movement in May 1901 and performed and Stéphane Denève, part of the entire Concerto in November. The work was greeted the Orchestra’s Rachmaninoff enthusiastically and opened the way to Rachmaninoff’s Festival. most intensive period of compositional activity. In addition to Rachmaninoff’s A Closer Look To begin the first movement and Stokowski’s 1929 (Moderato), the solo piano inexorably intones imposing recording of the Concerto, the Orchestra recorded the work chords in a gradual crescendo, repeatedly returning in 1956 for CBS with Eugene to a low F. This opening evokes the peeling of bells, a Istomin and Eugene Ormandy, preoccupation of many Russian composers and one in 1971 for RCA with Arthur that had roots in Rachmaninoff’s childhood experiences. Rubinstein and Ormandy, and The passage leads to the broad first theme played by in 1989 for EMI with Andrei the strings. The core of the Concerto is an extended Gavrilov and . The slow middle movement (Adagio sostenuto). The second and third movements pianistic fireworks come to the fore in the finale (Allegro only were also recorded by scherzando), which intersperses more lyrical themes— Rachmaninoff and Stokowski indeed the beloved tunes from all three movements were for RCA in 1924. later adapted into popular songs championed by Frank Rachmaninoff scored the work Sinatra and others. for an orchestra of two flutes, two , two clarinets, two , four horns, two , three , , , percussion (, , side drum), and strings, in addition to the solo piano. Performance time is approximately 35 minutes. 33 Piano Concerto No. 3

Rachmaninoff composed his Rachmaninoff continued to build on the compositional Piano Concerto No. 3 in 1909. successes of his Second Piano Concerto and Second Since Alfred Cortot’s Symphony during what turned out to be the most appearance in the Orchestra’s productive period of his career. Now in his mid-30s, he first performances of the was about to undertake his first tour to America in 1909. Concerto, in January 1920 In preparation, he decided to write a new concerto, again with Leopold Stokowski, amidst the calm of the family retreat in Ivanovka. a number of great pianists have performed it here, Rachmaninoff dedicated the Third Concerto to Josef including , Hofmann, the great Polish-born pianist who would later , , become the director of the Curtis Institute of Music. , and André Soon after his friend’s death, Hofmann commented: Watts. Rachmaninoff himself “Rachmaninoff was made of steel and gold; steel in performed it with the Orchestra his arms, gold in his heart.” In the end, Hofmann never in February 1920 (with performed the piece, which Rachmaninoff premiered as Stokowski) and in December soloist in November 1909 with leading 1939 (with Eugene Ormandy). the New York Symphony Orchestra. After a few weeks The most recent subscription elsewhere on his three-month tour, Rachmaninoff played performance was in April the piece again in New York, this time with 2017 with Nikolai Lugansky conducting the . (The competing and Stéphane Denève, part of orchestras later merged.) the Orchestra’s Rachmaninoff Festival. A Closer Look The unforgettable opening of the Third The Orchestra has recorded Piano Concerto (Allegro ma non tanto) is simplicity Rachmaninoff’s Third Piano itself: a hauntingly beautiful played in octaves that Concerto three times: in has a chant-like quality. Rachmaninoff stated that it was 1939 with the composer and “borrowed neither from folk song nor from ecclesiastical Ormandy for RCA, in 1975 sources. It just ‘got written.’ … I wanted to ‘sing’ a melody on with and the piano the way singers sing.” Rachmaninoff composed Ormandy for RCA, and in two , both of which he played. The short coda 1986 with and returns to the opening melody. Riccardo Muti for EMI. The following Intermezzo: Adagio begins with an Rachmaninoff’s score calls orchestral section presenting the principal melodic ideas, for solo piano, two flutes, melancholic in tone, until the piano enters building to a two oboes, two clarinets, two broadly Romantic theme. There is a very brief, fast, scherzo- bassoons, four horns, two like section that leads without pause into the thrilling and trumpets, three trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion technically dazzling Finale: Alla breve. The movement (bass drum, cymbals, snare recycles some of the musical ideas of the first one, making drum, suspended ), and this one of the most unified of the composer’s concertos. strings. —Christopher H. Gibbs The Third Concerto runs approximately 45 minutes in performance. 34 The Music Concerto for Orchestra

Leading European composers during the Second World War faced difficult challenges concerning how to create, survive, and behave. Some were forced to flee for their lives, often ending up in America. Others collaborated— reluctantly or opportunistically or enthusiastically—with the Fascist regimes in , Italy, and Spain. A few pursued “inner immigration,” remaining in Europe, trying to keep off the radar screen, and all the while composing works with no immediate prospects for performance.

Béla Bartók Béla Bartók pursued an honorable path among Born in Nagyszentmiklós, unattractive options. A fervent anti-Fascist whose views Hungary (now Romania), caused him increasing problems with governmental March 25, 1881 authorities, exile from his native Hungary was self- Died in New York, imposed. He and his wife moved to America in October September 26, 1945 1940, soon after the death of his mother freed him from filial obligations. Life abroad also had challenges. Sporadic income from lectures and performances supplemented a stipend from , which gave him an honorary doctorate in November. The university hired him not as a composer but rather to pursue enthnomusicological research in folk music, a field in which he was an extraordinary scholarly pioneer and that also had an enormous impact on the original music he composed. Bartók’s health was failing (the eventual diagnosis was leukemia) and he composed very little for some three years. A Welcome Commission At the urging of two prominent fellow Hungarians, the violinist and the conductor , in May 1943 Bartók received a commission for an orchestral work from , the enterprising conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra. Although Bartok was reluctant to start a new project, the $1000 fee must have proved tempting, made all the more attractive when he received a grant from the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers (ASCAP) that allowed him to work in peace at a sanatorium in Saranac Lake in upstate New York. In August Bartók began composing the Concerto for Orchestra and completed it in under two months, although he drew upon some musical material written years 35 earlier. As he reported to Szigeti, “At the end of August I experienced an improvement in the state of my health. Presently I feel quite healthy: I have no fever, my strength has returned, and I am able to take long walks in the wooded hills around here. In March I weighed 87 pounds, now 105. I’m gaining weight. I’m getting fat. I’m getting limber. You won’t recognize me anymore. Perhaps the fact that I was able to complete the work that Koussevitzky commissioned is attributable to this improvement (or vice versa). I worked on it for the whole of September, more or less night and day.” The premiere took place over a year later when Koussevitzky led the work to great acclaim on December 1, 1944. Bartók had been frustrated by the American reception of his recent compositions, which were generally viewed as too challengingly Modernist. The Concerto for Orchestra was more approachable and immediately brought Bartók welcome attention and new commissions. His writer’s block now broken, he wrote the for Solo , the Third Piano Concerto, and most of the Concerto before his death in September 1945 at age 64. A Closer Look Although the core concerto repertory of the past two centuries features just one instrumentalist in relation to an orchestra, the earlier Baroque often employed multiple soloists. Bartók was hardly the first 20th-century composer to revive this idea, but his dazzling tour-de-force deservedly proved the most famous and influential. He well knew the level of playing that an ensemble like the Boston Symphony was capable of and exploited it to the fullest. As with many works throughout his career, Bartók does not so much quote folk materials, but rather calls upon the style, gestures, and instrumentation of a wide variety of music from central Europe, including Hungary, Romania, and Slovakia. The five movements unfold in Bartók’s favored arc shape (ABCBA) with the outer movements in , in second and fourth place, all framing an elegiac center. Bartók explained in a program note: “The general mood of the work represents, apart from the jesting second movement, a gradual transition from the sternness of the first movement and the lugubrious death-song of the third, to the life-assertion of the last one.” The first movement (Introduzione: Andante non troppo—Allegro vivace) begins with a slow, soft, and mysterious introduction dominated by the lower strings 36

The Concerto for Orchestra that eventually builds to a fast and vigorous first theme was composed in 1943. and a more plaintive second theme featuring the . conducted the Bartók’s manuscript shows the original title of the second first Philadelphia Orchestra movement was “Presentation of the couples,” which performances of the Concerto he changed to “Game of the couples” (Giuoco delle in January 1948, in Philadelphia coppie: Allegretto scherzando). He explained that and at Carnegie Hall. The this scherzo “consists of a chain of independent short work was a favorite of Eugene sections, [played] by wind instruments consecutively Ormandy (who conducted it introduced in five pairs (bassoons, oboes, clarinets, flutes, numerous times, including on and muted trumpets).” The sections have nothing in his last concert, in January common and after a brief brass chorale in the middle, they 1984 at Carnegie Hall), are recapitulated with a fuller orchestration. but was also led by such conductors as , The mournful centerpiece (Elegia: Andante non Thomas Schippers, Seiji troppo) is also “chain-like,” this time with three themes. Ozawa, Antal Dorati, James In the second scherzo (Intermezzo interrotto: DePreist, Marin Alsop, David Allegretto) Bartók parodies the so-called invasion Zinman, , section from Shostakovich’s enormously popular Seventh and Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos. Symphony (“Leningrad”). He initially admitted this The most recent subscription movement was programmatic—apparently representing performances of the piece were the Nazis intruding on cheerful Hungarian life—but in February 2012, with Charles withdrew any overt information except for the suggestive Dutoit on the podium. title: “interrupted intermezzo.” The Philadelphia Orchestra has recorded the work four The piece concludes with another sonata-form movement, times: in 1954 and 1963 for this time in perpetual motion. “The exposition in the finale CBS, and in 1979 for RCA, (Pesante—Presto) is somewhat extended,” Bartók with Ormandy, and in 2005 for explained, “and its development consists of a built Ondine, with Eschenbach. on the last theme of the exposition.” After Koussevitzky Bartók scored the piece gave the first six performances of the Concerto for for three flutes (III doubling Orchestra in Boston and New York, Bartók made some piccolo), three oboes, English fairly minor revisions to the score, mainly with respect to horn, three clarinets (III doubling tempos and instrumentation. More significant was a new ), three bassoons, ending to the work, which the conductor George Szell , four horns, had originally found rather abrupt. The score therefore three trumpets, two trombones, includes a more triumphant alternative, which is what is bass , tuba, timpani, usually performed, including at this performance. percussion (bass drum, cymbals, side drum, tam-tam, —Christopher H. Gibbs triangle), two harps, and strings. The Concerto for Orchestra runs approximately 35 minutes in performance.

Program notes © 2018. All rights reserved. Program notes may not be reprinted without written permission from The Philadelphia Orchestra Association. 37 Musical Terms

GENERAL TERMS consequence of the and mood, usually for a solo : A passage or fundamental conviction instrument section in a style of brilliant among successive Sonata form: The form in , usually generations of composers which the first movements inserted near the end of a since 1900 that the means (and sometimes others) movement or composition of musical expression in of are usually Chorale: A hymn tune the 20th century must be cast. The sections are of the German Protestant adequate to the unique and exposition, development, Church, or one similar in radical character of the age and recapitulation, the style. Chorale settings are Octave: The interval last sometimes followed vocal, instrumental, or both. between any two notes that by a coda. The exposition Chord: The simultaneous are seven diatonic (non- is the introduction of sounding of three or more chromatic) scale degrees the musical ideas, which tones apart are then “developed.” In Coda: A concluding section Op.: Abbreviation for opus, the recapitulation, the or passage added in order a term used to indicate exposition is repeated with to confirm the impression of the chronological position modifications. finality of a composition within a Concerto grosso: A type composer’s output THE SPEED OF MUSIC of concerto in which a large Perpetual motion: (Tempo) group (known as the ripieno A musical device in Adagio: Leisurely, slow or the concerto grosso) which rapid figuration is Alla breve: (1) 2/2 meter alternates with a smaller persistently maintained [cut time]. (2) Twice as fast group (the ). The Recapitulation: See as before. term is often loosely applied sonata form Allegretto: A tempo to any concertos of the Scherzo: Literally “a between walking speed and Baroque period except solo joke.” Usually the third fast ones. movement of symphonies Allegro: Bright, fast Elegia: Elegy and quartets that was Andante: Walking speed Fugue: A piece of music introduced by Beethoven Moderato: A moderate in which a short melody to replace the minuet. The tempo, neither fast nor slow is stated by one voice scherzo is followed by a Presto: Very fast and then imitated by the gentler section called a trio, Scherzando: Playfully other voices in succession, after which the scherzo is Sostenuto: Sustained reappearing throughout the repeated. Its characteristics Vivace: Lively entire piece in all the voices are a rapid tempo in triple at different places time, vigorous , and TEMPO MODIFIERS Giuoco delle coppie: humorous contrasts. Also Ma non tanto: But not too Game of the couples an instrumental piece of much so Intermezzo: A short a light, piquant, humorous Non troppo: Not too much movement connecting character. the main divisions of a Sonata: An instrumental DYNAMIC MARKS symphony composition in three or Crescendo: Increasing Interrotto: Interrupted four extended movements volume Modernism: A contrasted in theme, tempo, 38 Tickets & Patron Services

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